Caterpillars Morph into Butterflies in Amazing 3D Images

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Stunning new pictures of butterfly metamorphosis have been
captured using common medical imaging.

The images of the tiny insects, which are described today (May
14) in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, were taken
with a CT scanner that has the resolution to image insects as
small as 0.2 inches (5 millimeters).

The new technique could be used to study insect development in
place of dissection. Dissection can be a time-consuming,
laborious process that requires killing a different specimen for
each stage of development. [ See
the Amazing Caterpillars Morph into Butterflies ]

Masters of Earth

Insects
make up between 50 percent and 85 percent of the animals on the
planet, said study co-author Russell Garwood, a geologist at the
University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, who studies
fossilized insects.

"To a first approximation, every living thing is an insect, so
they're worth understanding," Garwood told LiveScience.

Yet despite insects' prevalence on Earth, most researchers study
only a few model organisms, such as the fruit fly Drosophila
melanogaster.

To see whether there was a simpler way to study living insects as
they developed, the research team used computed tomography (CT)
to scan nine Vanessa cardui pupas (the life stage
after the caterpillar stage) as
they underwent metamorphosis into painted lady butterflies inside
a hard outer shell.

The 3D images revealed the fine structure of the pupa anatomy as
the insects matured, including the tracheal airways, the antennae
and the midgut.

The radiation from the scanning didn't seem to be a problem for
the pupas, many of which successfully hatched into butterflies.

The findings suggest the technique could be a viable way to study
living insects as they develop.

Insect solutions

The researchers envision several ways to use the new techniques.
One possibility is studying how pesticides
affect bees' development. Currently, honeybee colonies have
seen great declines and some say pesticides may be to blame for
this so-called colony collapse disorder; a definitive culprit is
still not known.

"Insects are the main pollinators for the majority of our crops,"
so understanding what causes them to become ill is critically
important, Garwood said.

The researchers said they can also see the technique being used
in forensics to study flesh-eating
maggots that eat decomposing bodies.